Fire Official: Quakertown Was Gypped

August 04, 1992|by JOSEPH P. FERRY, The Morning Call

The Quakertown Fire Department has been shortchanged more than $250,000 since 1983 because Richland Township has failed to live up to a funding agreement, Quakertown Fire Department President Jeffrey R. Stump charged last night.

Speaking at a meeting of the Board of Supervisors to which representatives of the four fire companies that cover the township were invited, Stump said his department would have received an additional $176,000 if Richland had given Quakertown its fair share under the agreement. He estimated that money would have generated about $90,000 in interest over that period of time.

The agreement, drawn up in 1983, stated that the fire companies would share township revenue according to a complicated formula, with Quakertown receiving 37 percent of the money, Shelly getting 27 percent, Richlandtown 20 percent and Trumbauersville 16 percent.

It also stated that the board of supervisors would work toward increasing the township's total contribution for fire protection from the equivalent of two mills of real estate tax revenue up to the average of the other three municipalities' contributions to their fire companies, 3.552 mills.

But in reality, according to Stump, the Shelly Fire Company, the only one within the township boundaries, has received more than its share of funding under the formula, at the expense of the other companies.

Furthermore, the township has failed to increase its total contribution to fire protection, leaving all four companies scrambling for money, he said.

Representatives of the other companies agreed. They said the township must come up with additional funding and distribute it more equitably to all the departments for them to survive.

The board did not take any action on the fire companies last night. Supervisors Chairwoman Lynda Johnson said she expects to receive pertinent information from the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency within the next few weeks. which will be used in making any funding or coverage area decisions.

In the meantime, contracts with the four fire companies will be mailed out this week, with funding amounts frozen at levels set last fall when the supervisors hammered out their budget for 1992, said Johnson. With one mill generating about $26,000, the companies will have approximately $52,000 to split.

But first, the township will pay the Shelly Fire Company's insurance premiums, totaling about $17,000, according to township secretary Rudolph Docktor. The remaining $35,000 will be distributed according to the formula, he said.

"I don't feel like we accomplished a lot," said Stump afterward. "At least not as much as we would have liked. I don't know what else we can do. We brought the issue to a public forum. I thought we would have gotten a better response. We'll take a wait-and-see attitude before we do anything else."